T4G - Panel Discussions

Interspersed throughout this week’s conference are panel sessions. There are five of them: two featuring the Together for the Gospel foursome and three others, each featuring one of the special guests (R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur and John Piper). These sessions are an opportunity for those in attendance, most of whom are pastors, to listen to these men chat amongst themselves in a somewhat informal context. It is an opportunity to see a group of men learn from each other and discuss what is of utmost importance to them. They are loosely moderated but clearly without a strict agenda.

By the very nature of these sessions they are very difficult to transcribe or summarize in the same way as the general sessions. So much of the panel discussions depends on the relationships between the men, their jokes and jabs, and their interaction that I don’t feel I could do justice to them. Because of this I will not attempt to “liveblog” those sessions. If you are able in the future to obtain audio (good)or video (better) of these sessions, I would recommend that you do so. I’m sure they will prove both entertaining and edifying.

Having said that, if I can pull a few quotes or pearls of wisdom from these sessions, I’ll be sure to let you know about them.

In the panel session that just passed, Mohler, Duncan, Mahaney and Dever walked us through a statement of belief which was in the classic form of a series of affirmations and denials. I do not know when this will be publically available (it may be already). It has clearly been written within a cultural context and addresses many of the common errors within modern evangelicalism. Through their affirmations they bring the gospel to the forefront while critiquing so much of what we are told is Christian. They deny, though not by name, open theism, aspects of the new perspective on Paul, modalism and other Trinitarian errors, church growth, gender roles and more. It is a short document but well worth reading and meditating upon.